1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the field of large area data communication and collection networks.
2. Prior Art
All cities have hundreds of remote locations that they would like to have real-time status information collected from. These could include sewer systems, power distribution systems, city buildings, private residences, utility meters, etc. Currently, there are no systems that are efficient at collecting data from hundreds of scattered locations distributed across a wide area.
Technologies do exist in the prior art for collecting telemetry data from the wide area. However these systems exploit single-hop long range transmitters. The sensors placed in the field are generally wired to large—suitcase sized—transmitter units that contain large batteries and directional antennas. These transmitter units send the sensor data directly back to the collection point. The cost and installation overhead of these transmitter units make it impractical to have a large number of sensors distributed throughout the environment. They are commonly used to monitor high-value assets such as oil wells.